


I was psychologically tortured and all I got for it was this crappy t-shirt

by Goose_Goddess



Series: Goose's Whumptober 2020 [5]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:48:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26846140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goose_Goddess/pseuds/Goose_Goddess
Summary: Q wakes up in a cell. No one's around, so he does his best to try and escape.
Series: Goose's Whumptober 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1949830
Kudos: 18





	1. No 5. WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING? (Failed Escape)

Q opened his eyes. His head was pounding, and he wasn’t sure why he had gone to sleep sitting up. He tried to lift a hand up to his head, but discovered his hands were tied together. _Okay. This was not good._

He looked down. He was sitting on a bare concrete floor, legs straight out in front of him. He was still dressed, even his shoe were on. Ankles tied together, hands tied together. He turned his head and looked around. He was in a mostly empty room. There was a bunk bed against one wall, a toilet/sink combination in one corner. The floor, ceiling, and three walls were bare concrete. The fourth wall was barred. There was a door in the barred wall, but he was pretty sure it was locked.

He struggled to remember anything about how he got here. But all he remembered was saying goodbye to R before leaving work. But even that was fuzzy and seemed far away.

The other side of the barred wall was a corridor, approximately ten feet wide. The other side was another cell, just like his. In fact, it looked like the corridor was a series of cells. He couldn’t tell if anyone was over there, it was too out of focus. He crinkled his nose, but didn’t feel his glasses; he assumed someone had taken them to keep him from getting around too quickly.

Sighing, he glanced down at his hands. Hands were tied with duct tape. Okay… He remembered Bond telling him villains loved duct tape, but that it actually made a crappy fastening. It was designed to tear easily, so strong forces applied across the width would easily be used to break free. (Well, actually, he said was apply a downward force between the strapped limbs, and the tape will rip.)

He decided to work on the legs first. After a lot of flopping and wiggling, he got on his feet, leaning back against the wall. Trying to remember what he’d been told, he spread his knees as far as possible. Then he placed his hands between his knees, took a deep breath, and drove them down toward the tape. And promptly fell over onto his side.

The third time, it worked. Or at least, he stayed on his feet, and the tape started to rip. Two attempts after that, and the tape separated completely. He sat back down against the wall and peeled the tape off from his ankles, glad they’d taped over his pants and he wasn’t ripping his leg hair out as he went.

Next up, his arms. He sighed and tried to figure out the best method. He could put a foot between his arms and try kicking down. That would have enough force, but it would scrape the heck out of his arms. Unless he removed his shoes. 

He slid off one show, then wiggled back until he could slide a foot between his arms. The angle was too sharp. He could get his foot on to the tape, but he couldn’t get any leverage to push it down. His entire upper leg was pressed hard against his torso.

Sighing, he pulled his leg free and slid his shoe back on. Okay, so how else was he going to put a force on the tape around his wrists. What if he used his torso? Just tried to put his arms behind him? 

He slid out away from the wall and got onto his knees to provide better balance. Then, he separated his elbows, one to each side, took a deep breath, and drove them back behind him as hard as he could. Again, his first attempt did little other than pull the tape tight on his wrists. But he had nothing better to do, so he tried again. By the fifth try, the tape was rolling up on the edge, but not ripping.

Frustrated, he held his arms up to his teeth and tried grabbing and ripping the tape. He managed to make a tiny tear, but the tape was hard to get a grip on. He groaned and lowered his arms, then looked around the room. Seeing the bunk bed, he got up onto his feet and walked over, looking the whole thing over carefully. He didn’t see any sharp edges, but maybe dragging the tape across an edge, even if it was smooth, might work.

He bent his hands back as far as he could, then dragged the exposed tape back and forth across the vertical support until he got tired. It didn’t seem to make much difference, but he figured he had nothing to lose by trying to break it again.

This time, it split on the first attempt. Feeling very exhausted, probably from all the stress, he crawled over and collapsed on the bed before picking off all the tape.

Next step, get out of the cell. The bottom of the bunk above him had a solid metal base. No wires. No springs. No screws or bolts he could see. Nothing to use as a lock pick.

He checked all of his pockets. They’d taken everything out of them. No pens, no tools, nothing. His watch was gone. He sighed. Only one place left to check. He lifted up his foot and examined the sole of his shoe. They looked like his shoes, so there was a chance. He pulled the shoe off and checked the ends of the laces. He could still feel the object in them. He’d made carbon fiber picks and added them to his laces. He’d planned on testing them out in the lab, but this was better. He’d found that the carbon fiber was really only good for one attempt, but since they weren’t detectable by metal scanners, if no one knew they had it, it could be just the advantage the spy needed.

And he’d inserted them into all four ends of his laces to ensure that he was really pushing the limits of the metal detectors. Well, whoever put him in here hadn’t detected them. Now he just had to see if they worked.

He walked over to the cell door and looked both ways down the hallway. He didn’t see anyone or hear anyone. And it looked like the cells he could see across the way were all empty. 

He lay his head against the bars for a minute, thinking. Go now, or wait to find out what was going on. If he’d been abandoned, he’d just get weaker the longer he waited. If he was being monitored, there was no way to know when it was safe. Might as well try.

He took a deep breath and checked the steadiness of his hands. Looked okay. He shrugged and slid his hand outside, to slide the pick into the lock. A few minutes later, and the door clicked open. He slid it open carefully and stuck his head out to look both ways down the hall. Still no one in sight. So. Which way? He looked like he was in the middle of the corridor, but he really couldn’t tell what was at the ends. It was too far away.

_When in doubt, go left,_ he decided and started down the corridor to the left. Not sure what was in the other cells, he walked right down the center of the aisle. 

He had nearly made it to the intersection when a voice came over an intercom. “Well, well, well. Where do you think you’re going, Quartermaster? You should not be wandering around unsupervised like that.” The voice sounded amused. “We had such fun times planned for you. Now I’m afraid you’re going to have to take a nap.” A hissing sound filled the air, and the hall started filling with a yellowish mist. 

“No.” Q moaned and hurried, trying to make it to the intersection to find any room that might have some protection. But it was getting hard to move or think. And suddenly, he was collapsing to the floor. 

“Bad Quartermaster’s get put in time out. You’ll have to wait until another time to meet your friends.”

But Q was already asleep on the floor. He never saw the group of people in hazmat suits and gas masks who approached, scooped up his body and returned him to the bunk in his cell.


	2. No 6. PLEASE... (No More | Stop, please)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still trapped, Q finds out more about what's been going on.

Q opened his eyes. His head was pounding, and he wasn’t sure where he was. He lifted a hand to his head and noticed he was still wearing the shirt he’d worn to work. It looked a little ragged and had… was that pieces of duct tape on it? He frowned. He did use duct tape in the office; it was great for keeping things where they belonged, but he didn’t wrap it around himself.

He looked around. He was lying on the bottom bunk of a bunk bed. The bottom of the bunk above him had a solid metal base. No wires. No springs. No screws or bolts he could see. It wasn’t familiar at all and looked very much like what you’d find in a prison cell.

Fighting the pain in his head, he rolled onto his side to look around the room. He was in a mostly empty room. The bunk bed he was lying on was against one wall, a toilet/sink combination in one corner. The floor, ceiling, and three walls were bare concrete. The fourth wall was barred. There was a door in the barred wall, but he was pretty sure it would be locked.

He struggled to remember anything about how he got here. But all he remembered was saying goodbye to R before leaving work. But even that was fuzzy and seemed extremely far away. But there was something, something vague tickling his memory. Something felt familiar about this entire situation. It was almost like he’d gone through this before.

He sat up, breathing deeply for a few seconds. The movement had made the pain in his head spike, making him nauseous. Once he had it under control, he lifted his head and looked towards the bars. On the other side of the bars a corridor, approximately ten feet wide. He could see another cell just like his on the other side of the aisle. He walked over to the wall carefully and looked both ways down the corridor. All he could see was a series of cells on the opposite side. He couldn’t see anything on his side, but he assumed it was just the same. He couldn’t tell if anyone else was in the cells. Everything was fuzzy and out of focus. He lifted his hand to his nose and realized he wasn’t wearing his glasses. That explained the fuzziness.

Something still felt off. Well, of course waking up in a cell felt off. It wasn’t like he did it that often. But… But that was the thing. It did sort of feel like he did. Or rather, it felt like he’d woken up in this cell, and repeated these actions before.

He walked back to the bunk and sat down. Not sure what else to do, he looked over his wrists. They were pretty abraded. Looked like he’d been tied or… remembering the tape remnants on his sleeve, he amended that to taped. But that might have been from when whoever put him in here transported him to wherever here was.

How did he get here? He unbuttoned his cuff, and slid it up, checking his arm and elbow for any needle marks. Nothing. He checked the other one. Nothing there either. Of course, that didn’t mean anything. There were plenty of ways to administer drugs without a needle. Or, for that matter, lots of places to give an injection where it’s tough to find the marks.

He sighed and refastened his cuffs. Well, he could wait to find out what was going on, or try to escape. He wasn’t sure how well he’d be able to travel. Might be better to wait until the nausea receded a little. Wouldn’t do much good to get out of the cell and then end up on the floor vomiting on the floor.

He sat there, head in his hands. Trying his hardest to remember something, anything, about how he got here. He could vaguely remember waking up tied. Or handcuffs? Maybe he’d been taped to a chair? He groaned. His head hurt so much, thinking was almost impossible.

He heard a door open, followed by the tapping of feet down the corridor. Someone was coming. 

Q debated what to do, but decided standing and either passing out or throwing up were not good looks. He’d just stay where he was.

The person approaching was a man. Dressed in a dark-colored suit. Q couldn’t make out details of his face, but his hair was either extremely blond or white. 

“Good morning, Quartermaster.” The man had a faint accent, middle European, but had clearly spent enough time in Britain to smooth it out and make it barely noticeable.

Part of Q wanted to be polite, try to make the man like him. In the long run, it was the right approach. But his head hurt and to be honest, he was furious. So he just glared at the man. “Why am I here?” 

“Ah, well, that’s an interesting thing. We took you to put your employer at a disadvantage, and let me tell you, it’s been effective. But we could have just thrown you into a box for that. And that would have been a waste.” The man’s voice was amused.

“What do you mean?” Q asked, puzzled. What good would he be locked up in a cell? His skills were valuable, but only if he had access to technology. Not locked up here in a room with no electronics, no tools, nothing.

“Well, I’m sure you have an R & D department. You develop new tools, new toys. New drugs. Sometimes, the biggest challenge is how to test things.” The man paused. “Well, we had a perfect opportunity. After all, we did have to keep you contained long enough.”

Q’s head snapped up. “Long enough for what?” 

The man laughed. “Now that would be telling, wouldn’t it?”

Q stood up, feeling threads of panic start to wind through his stomach. “How long have I been here?” He asked, fighting to keep his voice calm.

“Oh, a while. We have a lovely little cocktail that puts you into an agreeable mood, wipes your short-term memory, and keeps you very compliant. Lets us test different situations to see which have the best effect for getting the result we want. The only drawback is a minor issue with hallucinations in some people.”

“How long have I been here?” Q repeated. The threads in his stomach were multiplying and twisting around each other to form ropes.

“Not that long. Only a few weeks. The biggest challenge we faced was your clothes. If we didn’t get duplicates, you would have noticed something was off when you realized how awful your clothes looked.” The man’s voice was still highly amused. “Fortunately, you’re not like Bond. We were able to match everything off the rack.”

_Weeks._ Q felt like the floor had dropped out from under him. _They’d been drugging him for weeks. He’d been here for weeks, and no one had found him yet?_ He’d always believed that the double Os would find him quickly. Granted, he was usually the one searching and finding them when they were missing. But R was almost as good and had access to all his algorithms. And Bond and Trevelyan were fantastic at what they did. 

“Well, Quartermaster, I just wanted to check in with you. I like to monitor my team’s projects, just like I’m sure you do. Enjoy your day. I believe they gave you a day off, and let your body recover a little from everything. Someone will bring you food before too much longer.” And the man strode off down the hall. 

Q stood there for a few minutes longer, just staring at the cell across from him. _He’d been here for weeks? What had he done? What had he told them?_ His mind was racing, but all he could dig up was vague memories of other times in this room. He remembered being taped up, and… he’d used his lock picks to get out of the cell, but they’d gassed him.

He walked back to the bunk and sat down, checking the laces of his shoes. The picks were gone. So he probably had used one. Maybe because they’d used a gas to knock him out, it hadn’t worked on his short-term memory, and that’s why yesterday was the only day he could remember. Well, sort of remember.

_No. Please, this can’t be happening._ He tried to rein in his thoughts. They were frantically covering all sorts of horrible situations where he’d been drugged and used to hack into a vital system. Suddenly cold, he pulled his knees close and huddled on the bed. 

Dully, he decided there wasn’t anything he could do right now, but they had said food would be brought. Maybe he could learn more from whoever brought it. In the meantime, he needed to get up and do something. If not, he’d just sit here and panic.

He got up and started searching the room. He lifted everything that moved, ran his hands over every edge and wall and corner. He didn’t find anything, but it gave him something to do and something for his mind to focus on that wasn’t how long he’d been trapped down here repeatedly drugged, with his memory erased over and over again. And how long before… He shut down that train of thought immediately and went back to his current investigation of the join between the walls and floor.

He had nearly reached the end of the wall/floor join when he heard another set of footsteps walking down the corridor. He got to his feet and stood near his bed.

Two men walked up to the door. One pointed a weapon at him, while the other unlocked and opened the cell door. The second stepped in and placed the tray he was carrying on the ground inside the cell, then stepped out and locked the door behind him.

The two walked off without saying a single word. Q watched them walk off, wondering if he should have said something. Bond would have said something. Bond would probably have gotten them so angry or confused they would have charged him, and he would have used the tray to take out the first guy and taken his gun, then knocked out the second guy.

He sighed and retrieved the tray before sitting on the bed. It had a simple sandwich and a bottle of water. He wasn’t very hungry, but he figured he needed to eat anyhow. So he finished the sandwich and water. Then took the tray and placed it by the door. With nothing better to do, he went back to his searching.

He’d covered the entire cell, and its contents, and was debating repeating the process, when the intercom came on. The voice of the man who had talked to him earlier filled the entire hall.

“Well, Quartermaster, seems we are going to have to cut your day off short. My apologies, but we will talk again.”

The air filled with a yellowish mist, and he started feeling dizzy. “No!” He gasped. “Stop this! Please! No more.” But everything was going gray. He staggered over to the bunk and crawled onto it before he collapsed, wanting to avoid any injury. Then he was gone.


	3. No 7. I’VE GOT YOU (Support | Carrying)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q wakes up and finally has a chance to escape.

Days passed. Q wasn’t sure how many. They weren’t using the same drugs; he was remembering some things. But it was just flashes. Bits and pieces. Some days he remembered talking to someone. Or eating a meal. It was impossible to tell when days passed otherwise. There were no windows. The light was always the same. There were no noises other than the occasional visitor. He was losing track of reality. 

He was sure that while each day passed, he was alert. Like now. He was going over all the parts of the cell again, because it was a way to pass the time. It gave him something to think about, which was much better than just sitting on the bunk and worrying about what the drugs were doing to his system or what he had told his captors or done for his captors. Instead, he focused on looking for anything he could use as a tool.

He crawled under the lower bunk to examine the legs and floor when he heard gunshots. He rolled over so he could see out from under the bunk, but decided he was safer under here until he knew what was going on.

“Well. Seems we’re going to have to cut your day short again.” The voice came over the intercom. Q swore angrily, but the mist was already filling the room and he collapsed into sleep again.

When Q woke up, he was lying on his back, but there was no bunk bed above him. Confused, Q scrambled out of the bed. He was dressed in just his pants. That was weird. He’d never woken up while they were treating him. He’d only ever woken up fully dressed and in his cell. He decided he didn’t have time to think about it. He had to get out while he had time, before they realized he’d woken up.

He hurried across the floor and pulled open the door of the room, staggering through into an empty hall. 

“Hey!” He heard a voice call after him. Panicked, he tried to speed up. The last dose they’d given him must have been stronger than usual because he was having a hard time moving. There was a door up ahead that looked like it opened into a staircase. He shoved it open and staggered through. He debated for half a second, but decided he had a better chance if he went down and grabbed the railing before heading down.

It sounded like more than one person was yelling. It wouldn’t be long before they thought of the stairs. He left the staircase on the next floor and started looking for somewhere to hide. He found a closet door that was unlocked, ducked in, and quietly closed it behind himself. Then collapsed on the floor to catch his breath.

He must have fallen asleep, because he could hear Bond calling him. He curled in on himself, wondering what horrible things those drugs were doing to him. Now either he was asleep or he was hallucinating. He started breathing harder. This hiding spot was horrible, and they were going to find him, and they’d drug him again and before long there wasn’t going to be anything left of him. He’d sit around all day listening to voices that weren’t even there.

He started laughing. What a way to go. At least if he was crazy he wouldn’t be any use to whoever had him. And wasn’t that pitiful? He was a genius and an expert at finding out information, and he’d been here for weeks and didn’t even know who had him. His laughing turned into sobs, and in seconds, he had his face buried against his knees crying.

The door opened slowly. “Q.” It really sounded like Bond. Q just ignored it. They’d just grab him and haul him back. He didn’t need to acknowledge the crazy.

“Q.” The voice insisted. “It’s okay, you’re okay now. Can you stand up?” A hand tugged at his arm and tried to pull him to his feet. He refused, just staying heavy on the ground.

“Q.” The voice was slow and a little worried. “Look, we need to get you back into bed. The doctors say it’s going to take a little while for the drugs to work their way out of your system, but it’ll go faster if you stay in the bed and let them monitor you.” The arms worked their way around him, one under his knees and one around his back. Then he was lifted carefully and brought out of the closet.

Still sobbing, Q collapsed against whoever was carrying him. “Okay, I’m going to bring you back up to your room, alright?” Sounds-like-Bond asked.

“I’m going crazy. Is that what you want?” Q asked. “Now I’m hearing things.”

“Hearing things? Like what?” Sounds-like-Bond asked.

“I keep hearing Bond.” Q mumbled. “Why would you want me crazy?”

“Q, you’re not hearing things.” A new voice answered. That one sounded like Eve. “And you should recognize his voice. You’ve heard him often enough making up excuses for destroying all of your tech.”

Q turned his head. Eve was holding the door open as he was carried through, then upstairs. She walked behind them, then darted ahead one floor above to open another door. “Eve?” He asked, puzzled. He looked up to see Bond smiling down at him. “Bond?” He asked.

“Hello Q.” Bond said, carrying him back into his room and laying him down on the bed. “Glad to have you back. We’ve been worried the last few days.”

“How long was I unconscious?” Q asked, worried.

“Only a few hours.” Eve said. “But you’ve been missing for three days and we’ve been worried sick.”

Q looked between Eve and Bond, confused. “Three days? I’ve been gone for weeks.” He said slowly. “They kept drugging me and…” His voice trailed off. “They said I was there for weeks, and then they started using less drugs and that was at least a week ago.”

Bond shook his head. “According to the doctors, they did keep drugging you. But best we can figure out, they woke you up for a few hours, drugged you again, and told you an entire day had passed.”

Q frowned. “Why?”

Eve put her hand on his shoulder. “Psych thinks they were trying to break down your mental defenses. They figured they would eventually try to get you to break into something. I’m guessing they didn’t count on R and the double-0s being as effective without you as they were.”

Bond grinned. “When R is angry, she is not a good enemy to have. And all double-0s who could get home in time came back. When R located you, we hit them all at once.”

Q looked at the two of them in amazement. “You did that for me?”

Bond laughed. “Q, the number of times you have refused to give up on us and somehow brought us home, there’s no way we were giving up on you.”

Eve smiled. “And as soon as you’re well enough, everyone wants to see you and make sure you’re okay. But for now, you need to sleep and let your body get rid of those drugs.” She pulled the covers up over him. “But I think, just for safety reasons, we’re going to keep someone in here at all times in case you wake up and forget you’re home.”

Q lay back and let sleep pull him back under. 


End file.
